Episode 39 - What’s Cooking at Warner Archive Collection with Mr. George Feltenstein

Home Theater United Podcast

Home Theater United

Episode 39

September 19, 2022 6:30 PM EST

What’s cooking at Warner Archive (Target time about 1h):

• Intro by sam: Who is Mr. George Feltenstein? What’s his history with Warner?
• He’s been a great friend to HTF over the years and we’d love to visit with him again =) THANKS to Ronald Episode for bringing Mr. Feltenstein to the show!
• So big changes with Warner Archive moving from Time Warner to The new Warner Brothers Discovery, what can you tell us about this transition?
• Adam Lenhart wonders if the sale is having effects on preservation. How has the role of film preservation changed? What’s the latest on it? Is new technology helping it, or making it more economical?
• Is Warner going “Streaming first”? Is there a way to say what has priority between theatrical, streaming, digital ownership and physical media? Are DVDs dead? Is MoD dead? Do you think streaming has good and well killed movies on demand?
• So… given the big changes and now 13 years in… what does the future of the warner archive collection look like? GF : I will address this
• It seems like everything is merging together into one of 2-3 big companies, yet there’s 18 different streaming services. How do you see this shaking out?
• How are you feeling about the future of actual movie theaters? Can they survive?
• What’s been recently announced that you are most excited about?

HTF questions:

• Jim Bur: THANKS for great 2020-2021 releases! Especially technicolor stuff
• Roland L and many many others: Anything in the pipe in 3d?
• Silent films?
• Angelo Columbus: Next year is the 100th anniversary! Big plans? & Robert Crawford: I would like to ask him if next year’s Warner’s Centennial celebration will include titles across the different studio releases now under Warner control. Will there be a mixture of Warner, MGM, RKO and Goldwyn titles coming out on physical media in 2023, to celebrate 100 years of Warner?
• Ricard M S: Have there been any recent "unexpected" discoveries of film elements/missing footage in the vaults that are being incorporated into upcoming blu-ray release? particularly interested in the still-unreleased complete MATA HARI.
• Battlebeast and others Any best picture winners in the pipe? Do they tend to be given priority?
• Rafael Piress: Any chance of getting back to 5-7 releases a month?
• SWFF: plans for more horror and/or SciFi flicks, and, maybe, more Hammer Films?
• JC Riesenbeck and others: Any chance of A Summer Place? (Sam notes this was his parents first date movie he thinks!)
• Lots of folks asking about TV shows, Sam Favate wants to know about Babylon 5
• Lots of folks interested in more classic animation, 80s forever notes the hints were for lots of animation in 2022, Delayed or off the table? GF: I will address
• Stephen J H how about collabs with cartoon network?
• Deepscan: Any collaborations with Criterion, like maybe an ultimate Superman set GF: I will address
• Arthur Powell: Anything happening on the silent film front (Greed, The Crowd, The Wind, The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg, The Fire Brigade, So This Is Paris, the 1924 version of Captain Blood, etc.)?
• Mark-P: The Opposite Sex Blu-ray having mono sound will ever be corrected and a replacement program initiated? Robert Harris made the following comment over a year and a half ago and nothing has come of it.
• Xochipill: anything for fans of 70mm like Ryan's Daughter and Cheyenne Autumn?
• Keith Cobby: Any update on the hinted on Three Little Words?
• Keith also asks Updates to 4k for big Blus like North By Northwest? Or are those not as important with great blurays already out
• Mark Brown Ask what is Warner's position on using Perspecta on MGM titles?

Specific Titles:

Larry P: Any plans for the Warner-owned Abbott and Costello films? These are the last A&C holdouts for blu-ray. Also, how about some more love for Lucy? - more RKO and of course "The Long, Long Trailer". A complete restoration of TV's Adventures of Superman would be amazing. Oh, and Gilligan needs to be rescued from DVD and onto Blu!

Duke Togo: Will WAC/Warner have access to the restoration work that Second Sight is doing with The Hitcher in the UK? WAC has about 200 Golden Harvest titles. Any updates on when we might see any in the line?

Joel Arnt: Are more titles starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, ...

Mark Mayes Gone with the Wind in 4k? (Sam asks has GWTW survived its time in the barrel recently!)

David Weiker Captain Blood

Astairefan: Any golden age musicals in the pipeline? Especially Astaire / Rogers films.

Lots of folks asked about Northwest Passage or Raintree County. Is raintree still problematic as reported in the past?

Stephen JH: Cartoon Network collab ?

Travelling Man: more Marx Brothers ?

Owen 35: hanna barbar?

Klaus: The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)